‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ has its fair share of iconic cinematic moments, including Indiana Jones outrunning a giant rolling rock to escape a booby-trapped Peruvian temple with a golden idol, not to mention the special effects of spirits escaping from the opened Ark of the Covenant that were probably responsible for many children’s nightmares in the 1980s.

But it is the final scene of the film that is perhaps the most thought-provoking, as the Ark – a “source of unspeakable power” – is sealed shut in a wooden crate and moved to a mysterious and expansive warehouse for ‘top men’ to study. The film finishes with a single figure wheeling the anonymised top-secret crate through row upon row of near-identical boxes, leaving us to imagine the other treasures stashed inside.

The dusty shelves and cases in museums may not be classified, but they still hold lost treasures hidden in plain sight. While it is highly unlikely that the fabled Ark of the Covenant is...